In the case of a battery operation system according to the related art, k batteries are divided into M module units and are connected to each other in series, in which each module is provided with switch blocks which are connected to a right of the battery. The switch block serves to select a specific cell to provide a current path to a capacitor of a next stage Further, a potential stored in the capacitor is read by an A/D converter and a value thereof is input to a microprocessor. The input battery sensing information is used as information to allow the microprocessor to operate the battery and if a specific cell is undercharged or overcharged, the microprocessor drives cell equalization apparatuses which are connected to each module in parallel to achieve the charge equalization of all the batteries.
However, when a plurality of batteries are operated for each module by being connected to each other in series in the battery operation system according to the related art, sensing circuits for sensing batteries for each module and the cell equalization apparatuses for each module are required.
However, the above-mentioned configuration requires the sensing circuits and the cell equalization apparatuses for each module, such that a circuit of the battery operation system may be complicated.
Further, when one module fails, the overall battery operation system is not used, which acts as a factor of reducing reliability of the battery operation system.
Therefore, a need exists for a method of reducing a volume and cost of the overall battery operation system by allowing the sensing circuit to control a part of the cell charge equalization apparatuses while configuring the number of sensing circuits for each module as small as possible.
Further, a need exists for a method for increasing reliability of the system by adopting the commercialized battery monitoring IC for the battery sensing and the cell balancing.